Conservative clergy unveil new plan

Fr. Dick Kim dug this story out from TheStar.com:

Network proponents say even critics might support alternative structure to win peace

Nov 14, 2008 04:30 AM

Stuart Laidlaw
Faith and Ethics reporter

Breakaway conservative Anglicans hope to set up a new entity within the church to rival the established power structure in Canada and the U.S. within the next three months. And they say failure to recognize their efforts could irrevocably divide the communion.

"If this new province doesn't work, there's probably going to be a much bigger split than just North America," Bishop Don Harvey told a news conference yesterday.

Harvey, moderator of the conservative Anglican Network in Canada, said the new entity would offer a conservative alternative to the liberal national churches in Canada and the U.S. While provinces in the Anglican communion are traditionally set up along geographic boundaries, the Network is working with dozens of U.S. congregations to break new ground by setting up a new North American province along theological lines.

Harvey concedes the communion has no process in place for the Network's request. Nonetheless, he hopes the proposal will be on the agenda of a meeting of the church's 38 primates, representing 75 million Anglicans worldwide, this February in Egypt.

Leaders of the church in both countries, as well as Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Anglicanism's spiritual leader, have said they oppose such a new province being part of the Anglican Communion.

Harvey was undeterred. "We would all like Canterbury to be on side but we are beyond the stage where we say Canterbury must be on side."

He would not speculate on how the vote in Egypt would go, noting Conservative primates are in the minority but represent more than half of all Anglicans. It is possible, he said, that some primates who oppose a new province will vote in favour in the hope of bringing peace to the communion, which has been split in recent years over same-sex blessings and gay clergy.

If the proposal does not come to a vote at the February meeting or is defeated, it will be sent to a meeting of conservative primates and bishops in April, Harvey said.

Network executive archdeacon Charlie Masters said that while the April meeting would not have the legal right to establish a new province, its backing could give the process the clout needed to eventually become a reality.

In the meantime, he said, the breakaway congregations will operate as if it were a province, hoping one day to gain the communion's recognition. "All of the properties of a province will be in place," he told the news conference.

The Network began the process yesterday of appointing three new bishops, to be consecrated in the new year by Archbishop Gregory Venables, primate of the Buenos Aries-based Anglican Province of the Southern Cone.

Since leaving the Canadian church, the Network's 23 congregations have operated under Venables' jurisdiction as an "emergency" measure until a new church can be set up in North America.

Over the weekend, the 100 delegates to the Network's first-ever synod – with almost equal representation of clergy and laity – will nominate priests they believe should be made bishops, Harvey said.